When the tower of tyres ....... left our Rec

So farewell that tower of tyres,

You were a constant feature of the Rec. 

And while some may have castigated your presence

As a blot on the beauty of Lord Egertos’s gift,

You were many things to many people.

You served as a climbing frame, 

A game of rolling tyres

And even a place to hide.

But now you have gone,

Taken on a Wednesday morning

By men of the Council.

No more will Declan in his early tasks

Of clearing the rubbish from last night’s revellers

Collect you up 

For fresh adventures by children of all ages.

Why you went is a mystery

But in your going

A little bit of the Rec has been lost.

I don’t suppose the curfew bell

Will toll the knell of your parting pleasures.

Nor the weary commuter homeward bound

Mourn your passing 

But I will 

Location; the Rec

Pictures; those lost towers of tyyres, 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

523 Barlow Moor Road back in 1961

The Stables, 1961

The recent past is a time I take for granted. 

I guess for some of us this is because it really doesn’t seem history.

I was born in 1949, grew up in the 1950s and 60s, came to Manchester in 1969 and began full time work in 1973.

Those decades and the next two are still vivid and familiar periods and I don’t count them as the past, and yet they are and we did do things differently then and this is the starting point for some new stories.

Back in 1961 my friend Ann lived on Barlow Moor Road in one of those large houses facing Chestnut Avenue.  This was number 523 and it was also where her father ran the family undertaker’s business.

The rear of 523 Barlow Moor Road, 1964

At the time Ann was still at school and regularly recorded the house and surrounding streets in a series of pictures for her art classes.

“The ground floor plan was quite unusual, in that there was a very large room on the right at ground level. 

The rest of the house was raised up about 6 feet, so there were steps at the front, back, and inside, above the basement, which stretched under the whole house.

In the garden there were the old stables at the end of the garden which my Dad used as a workshop to make the coffins, and also doubled as a garage.  

Previously it had been numbered 66, and before that 52.”

Looking out on Chestnut Aveneu, 1961

Like so many of our bigger house which has survived being demolished this one has been converted into flats with an extension added at the rear.

I am hard pressed now to remember it as it was which is why I am so pleased that we still have Ann’s painting and line drawings of the property.

They are almost the only record of this bit of Barlow Moor Road from the period and remind me of how things can change without us even noticing.

Over the next few weeks I shall be featuring more of Ann's pictures and it occurs to me that there may be plenty more photographs, paintings and drawings of Chorlton which it would be nice to include.

Pictures; 533 Barlow Moor Road, 1961, © Ann Love

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 41 ........ down Bridge Street and off to the left

Turning off Bridge Street ........

Now here is one of those little twisty streets I had never explored.

If I am honest I didn’t even know it existed or the history behind it.

It was Stuart, who runs the Sawyers Arms that first told me about the passageway which navigates the back of the pub, and so as ever an adventurous soul I was off down Bridge Street to find it, and sure enough there it was.

The entry is unnamed and leads down towards Hollins Chambers which was built in 1925, and then as mysterious and intriguing alleys go it takes a left turn and then a right before coming out on Wood Street.

As you would expect it is pretty much like walking through a canyon and with nothing but the walls of the surrounding buildings rising from street level.

Making a left turn ......

But here the history comes into play, because once a little over a century and a bit ago the entry never got as far as Wood Street and so had you walked the walk back in 1851 your journey would have ended in a series of closed courtyards which also gave access to the back of the Sawyers Arms and another pub called the Old Bulls Head.

To be fair you did get close to Wood Street but your journey would have come up against a dead end.

The intriguing question is when was that last section opened up, and it seems to have been sometime before 1894 but why this was so I have yet to discover.

I suppose the answer will be in the rebuilding of properties on Wood Street and that will involve a trawl of the rate books and a look for a series of maps between 1851 and 1894.

Followed by a right ......

In the meantime I shall end with that fine looking building which is Hollins Court.

Before it went up in 1925 this had been the site of yet another pub, which variously went under the name of the Cheshire Tavern, and the Cheshire Cheese but had gone by 1911.

So that will also require a search of the pubs to locate its final entry in the directories.

All good stuff.

And if you want to explore the passage way it can be entered of course from Bridge Street of if you have a mid by plunging down Wood Street and looking for that entrance.

But if you prefer enter from Wood Street

I of course offer up both for you to choose and while down there you can also go through another entry which will tale you into another pub but that is a story for another time.

Location; Manchester










Pictures; the passageway off Bridge Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Greenwich Park, and a moment a full 45 years ago .......... nu 3 the Town Hall

It will be a full 55 years ago but the memory of that walk through Greenwich Park on a Saturday in September 1971 has never left me.

I was in my second year at Manchester Poly and the pull of Well Hall and the family were still strong and so
I found myself back home with three friends.

It was a brief stay and most of it is a blur except for the walk from the gates on the Blackheath side through the park to Wolf’s statue, the Observatory and that view down to the river.

I can't remember but I am sure I would have shown them the Town Hall, the Maritime Museum and of course the foot tunnel but the rest of the day and the weekend are lost to me.

That said because the Kings Arms in Eltham had been my local we would have passed Saturday in there.

All of which just leaves me to reflect on the postcard which was marketed in the USA and carried the imprint of the American YMCA of which there must be a story, but not for now.

Location; Greenwich

Picture; Greenwich Park, 1905 from the series Greenwich, marketed in 1911-12 by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

Growing up in Chorlton in the 1940s at 523 Barlow Moor Road

Now 523 Barlow Moor Road still stands today although with additions at the rear it has become a property of multi occupancy.

But for most of the 20th century and a bit of the late 19th it was a family home and during the 1940s and 50s it was where my friend Ann grew up.

And as you do I asked her to write about the place, and here,  spread over two parts is her account of one house in a Chorlton we have now pretty much lost.


"523, Barlow Moor Road was a large detached house, set back from the road, with a small front garden, planted with deep red rhodedendrums

The house had four floors, which included attics and cellars, each with at least four rooms.

As both my parents worked from home, and I was an only child, this left me plenty of time to explore the house and garden.

At the side of the house was an old conservatory, and there were several old sheds, and stables which my Dad used as a workshop and garage.

On wet days, I would wander round the house, sometimes venturing up to the attic (Quite a scary place) where there were rooms full of interesting things.

One of my Uncles had tried to set up a business repairing bicycles, and there were frames, and wheels hanging on one wall.

The rest of the room was like a laboratory, with jars, bottles and chemicals laid out on benches..

I spent many happy hours mixing powders and liquids, watching things fizz, but as he'd been trying to make cosmetics, nothing exploded.

Another room was full of furniture, trunks full of clothing and clocks, which I would wind up until they no longer worked.

The third room was used to store old paintings and prints that my grandfather had bought at auctions, plus many old urns and other containers full of ashes, which had never been collected.

My father, as was his father before him, was an undertaker. They made all their own coffins from planks of wood, which were stored in the cellar.

When they were needed, Dad and Grandad would carry the wood down the garden to the workshop, where my Dad would cut it to size,and bend the sides to shape, by scoring the wood and steaming it, holding it in place with clamps.

He would then attach the bottom and sides with nails and glue, which he made in a little 'kettle' from horse bones.

When I was small, Grandad would tell me that they made boats, and he and my Dad would carry me up the garden in the coffins.I thought that was great fun.

There was another large workshop in the house, where my Dad would paint a layer of tar on the inside of the joints of the coffin (to prevent leakage) and my mother would then line the coffins with kapok and cheap taffeta."

© Ann Love, 2014

Pictures; the house in the 1950s, and drawings of the interior and exterior from the collection of Ann Love

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ....... nu 37 Francis Street and that children's charity

Now Francis Street which is off Great Ducie Street is hardly likely to lift the heart of the casual tourist or I suspect anyone.

In the back yard off Francis Street, 1873

True there is a hotel on the corner but the rest stretching out to Charter Street and down to New Bridge Street to the south  is a car park.

And the rest is rather unpromising.

Walk along Francis Street as I did a couple of years ago and you come to a dead end having passed what was more open land and a warehouse which was up for sale.

Of course things may have changed and it is on my to do list to visit with a camera which neatly takes me to this photograph.

Part of the Refuges, circa 1882

It was taken in 1873 from the back yard of a children’s charity.

The charity was the  Manchester & Salford Boys’ & Girls’ Refuges which had been established in 1870 to provide a bed and a meal for destitute boys.

The charity quickly extended its work to include girls as well as boys,and  provide more permanent homes offering training for future careers along with holiday homes.

It also campaigned against some of the worst cases of child exploitation taking negligent parents to court and arguing against the practise of employing young children to sell matches on the streets of the twin cities.

And like other children’s charities it became involved in the migration of young people to Canada.

The organisation is now called the Together Trust, and it is still engaged in the primary role of helping young people.

So given how vital their work was then as now I thought I would offer up the detailed plans of their buildings on Francis Street.

The complex was part home and part industrial school but also included a gymnasium and classrooms given over to training for those who were migrated to Canada.

From 1870 till 1939 many organizations engaged in caring for young people migrated some to Canada and later Australia as well as other parts of the old British Empire.

More of the Refuges, circa 1882

The practice has come in for some criticism and also had its critics at the time and the Manchester & Salford charity stopped earlier than most.

That said there were success stories and these are contained in letters and reports held in the Trust’s archives some of which are regularly featured in their blog.*

Added to which the organization is engaged in some exciting work with local schools aimed at extending our understanding of their work both in the past and today.

This also includes help offered to those who may have had relatives in the care of the Trust and want to trace their story.

All of which brings me back to Francis Street where their main building was situated.

Location; Salford

Picture; the yard of the Manchester & Salford Refuges, 1873, courtesy of the Together Trust,  http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html and details of the buildings from Goads Fire Insurance maps, 1882-1901, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Getting down and dusty, the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

The River .......... no. 16 ..... from The Goldsmith Collection

Now anyone who has walked this bit of the River at Greenwich will remember the noise of the water lapping the stones and the smell.

It doesn't matter how many times I pass this spot it always fascinates me.

Location; Greenwich



Picture; the River 2017, from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith